Afro-Mexicans

The term Afro-Mexican (Spanish: afromexicano) refers to Mexican citizens who are black or of African descent. Afro-Mexicans have historically been majorities in certain communities in Mexico. Although now largely assimilated in the population, they are concentrated mainly in coastal states such as Guerrero, Oaxaca, Michoacán, Veracruz, Campeche, Quintana Roo, and Yucatán.

History

When the Spanish first arrived in Mesoamerica, they brought slaves with them. Although African slaves contributed to the success of the conquistadors in New Spain, they did not share in the spoils of victory with the Europeans because of their status (Carroll, 2001). African presence in the New World was strictly for labor. The decline of the Amerindian population and the difficulty of making Native Americans into slaves and later the Pope's prohibition against enslaving them, prompted the Spanish to import large numbers of slaves from Ghana, Côte d'Ivoire, Senegal, Gambia, Nigeria, the Congo, and Angola. Some priests, like Bartolome de las Casas actually invoked humanitarian reasons to replace the native labor force with black slaves. Bartolome later retreated from this position after he saw how black slaves were treated. (Note: other forms of forced labor replaced the slave system for the Native American population.)

During the colonial period in Veracruz, Spaniards placed restrictions on contact between Africans and Natives to discourage the formation of alliances (Carroll, 2001). Intermarriage between the races, whose descendants were called Lobos in the caste system of New Spain and Zambos in other parts of Spanish America, was heavily discouraged by some individuals in the Catholic clergy. Africans soon outnumbered Europeans in certain areas, and the Spanish implemented many tactics to ensure that they remained the dominant racial group in Mesoamerica.

The Spaniards ruled the racial groups under their control according to medieval conceptions of strict social order. In the first place, they tolerated sexual relations with native or black women, but not marriage with them; and indeed, since males predominated among the waves of Spaniards and their African slaves, both European and African men had intercourse with Native women, so that from the beginning of the colonial period a complex order of racial mixture arose. And although the indigenous peoples, who did not want their communities to be overrun by outsiders, opposed the intercourse of Native and African, so that Africans sometimes took Native women by force (a fact that did not contribute to the establishment of good relations), Spaniards actually accorded the black population a higher status than the Native, who had the status of minors. Spanish authorities thus created a set of rules, so each mix had its place in colonial society, and a set of rights and prohibitions. For example, mulatto women could not use silver jewelery, while mestizo women could, and so on. Evidence of the racial order is to be found in a series of paintings known as pinturas de castas wherein the races and mixtures are categorized and classified. Eventually this system became too complex, and skin color became the standard of measurement of social level. Mexicans to date are still very sensitive to skin color, but as a sign of social status, rather than in racial terms. In this system, the black population had some rights: Since 1527 married black slaves could buy their liberty at twenty pieces of gold and own lands, although they could not have public positions and black women could not use jewels.

The Black population grew rapidly, and by 1608 most white homes had at least one black slave.

In the early days of the colonial period, slavery was very harsh, and lead to rebellions. In 1609 there was a black rebellion in Veracruz, lead by Gaspar Yanga and Francisco de la Matosa. After fierce battles, Yanga came to negotiate a peace with the viceroy Luis de Velasco. A black community, called "San Lorenzo" (Later renamed Yanga) was founded and still exists; it would be the first of several. But this would not stop the hostilities. Spanish authorities suspected a new rebellion, in 1612, they imprisoned, torture and execute 33 slaves (twenty nine males and four women). Their heads were cut off and remained in the main square of Mexico City for a long time as an example.

There were also some persons of African descent who were not made slaves. These were the descendants of slaves who escaped their slave-masters in the sugar cane farms in United States, especially Texas, and settled as free people in Coahuila in the nineteenth century. Mexico also experienced a settlement of thousands of Black Seminoles, who are descendants of free and escaped Africans who married Native Americans of Seminole ancestry. These settlers also escaped their slave-masters in Oklahoma Indian Territory and made a free African village in Nacimiento, Coahuila and a few villages along the Texas-Mexico border. In recent years, some Afro-Mexicans include blacks who immigrated to Mexico from Caribbean countries such as Cuba, or from Africa to earn money in Mexico as contract workers. Many Afro-Mexicans also went abroad to find better economic fortune, mostly to the United States, where they and their U.S. children are called African Americans and Mexican Americans of African descent.

Palenques

To escape the oppressiveness of slavery, some African Maroons escaped to the mountains and formed their own settlements. These settlements, called palenques, were comprised of mostly African males. The men in these settlements would periodically raid Native villages and plantations for women and bring them back to their settlements (Carroll, 2001). One of these palenques is Cuajinicuilapa in the state of Guerrero, home to a small enclave of Afro-Mexicans whose ancestors were slaves who escaped from the sugar and coffee plantations along the coast and settled into the mountainous regions of Guerrero (Hamilton, 2002). Today the Afro-Mexican residents of this town have a museum that displays the history and culture of their ancestors. They honor their African heritage through traditional dance and music.

The end of slavery

In 1810, the declaration of Independence of Mexico, called for the ban of slavery and the caste system, although this could not be done until the end of the independence war in 1821. This ban called for the death penalty for those who opposed the ban, so it was adopted. Even so, some "forms of slavery" like the tienda de raya (workers under perpetual debt) remained until the early twentieth century, but this slavery was more oriented to indigenous population.

Admixture

The Afro-Mexican population has mixed mostly[1] with the larger populations and many have forgotten their African ancestry, but some populations like Costa Chica and others still remain with stronger visual cues of their African ancestry.

Current situation

Many Afro-Mexicans make their homes along the Costa Chica, a 300-km (200-mile) long coastal region beginning just southeast of Acapulco, Guerrero, and ending at Huatulco in the state of Oaxaca (Vaughn, 2004). Most of the occupants of the Costa Chica derive their income from agriculture and fishing. The Costa Chica is also occupied by many indigenous groups, and Bobby Vaughn, creator of the website "Black Mexico," describes the relationship between the Afromestizos and the Indians as strained ([2], 2004).

In the last few years, more discourse has been taking place about why so little is known about the afro-diasporic population in Mexico. Since the nationalistic movement of the 1940s, the Mexican government states there is no distinction made between white, mestizo, mulatto, black, or Amerindian, so the population is classified on cultural bases rather than racial. As a result, most of the population is classified as mestizo, which is defined as someone who does not belong to an indigenous group (participate in their customs or speak their language). This criteria results in a much lower number of black and Amerindian population. Charles Henry Rowell, the editor of the Callaloo Journal, believes that the majority of the descendants of African slaves have disappeared through assimilation and miscegenation (2004). In the eyes of Mexican population, only people with very dark skin are actually called "negro", so the black population is not perceived as a community.

Lack of acknowledgement sometimes makes it difficult for Afro-Mexicans to take pride in their African heritage. Many have chosen to assimilate completely into Mexican society. A recent survey (2005) found that most of the people who show obvious black ancestry prefer to be considered mestizos. There is also outside pressure from other Mexicans that causes them to assimilate. Because their existence is not widely known throughout Mexico and the rest of the world, they are often assumed to be illegal immigrants from Belize or elsewhere in Latin America (Sailer, 2002). There have been many accounts of Afro-Mexicans being pulled over by the police and being forced to sing the Mexican national anthem to prove they are Mexican (Graves, 2004). This discrimination [3] causes many Afro-Mexicans, if they are able, to conceal their African lineage.

Despite being faced with discrimination and poverty, there are some Afro-Mexicans who openly embrace their African heritage and want it to be recognized. In Coyolillo, located in Veracruz, they celebrate Carnival, which has its roots in African culture. In the village of El Ciruelo, there is a small group of Afro-Mexicans who have organized as Mexico Negro, and they are fighting to have a racial breakdown added to the census before the 2010 count (Graves, 2004), but the National Institute of Statistics, Geography, and Data Processing (INEGI) [4] census does not record race. It is based only on socioeconomic criteria. About 200,000 Africans were brought to Mexico during the time of the Spanish Empire (Sailer, 2002). Although it is not common knowledge, and they make up less than one percent of the population, the descendants of these slaves still live in Mexico today. Anthropologist Gonzalo Aguirre Beltrán has called them "The third root".

Famous Afro-Mexicans

Historical figures

Gaspar Yanga founded the first free African township in the Americas in 1609.

Artists

Actor Zamorita. Kalimba Marichal, M'Baila Marichal, Johnny Laboriel and María del Sol are famous Mexican singers with African heritage. The late Toña La Negra was also an Afro-Mexican singer.

Politicians

Heroes of the Mexican War of Independence — Vicente Guerrero, second Mexican president, and José María Morelos y Pavón — were both mulattos. Also Joaquín Hendricks and Pío Pico former governors of Quintana Roo and California respectively.

Fictional figures

The comic character Memín Pinguín, whose magazine has been available in Latin America, the Philippines, and the United States newsstands for more than 60 years, is an Afro-Mexican. The Mexican Government issued a series of five stamps in 2005 honoring the Memín comic book series. The issue of these stamps was considered racist by some groups in the United States and praised by the Mexican audience who remember growing up with the magazine.

Others

Former and current boxers José Nápoles and Juan de la Rosa, footballers Giovanni dos Santos, Melvin Brown and Edoardo Isella, and Major League Baseball player of the 1970s, Jorge Orta.

See also

• Afro-Latin American

External links

• Afromexico
• The Mexico-Louisiana Creole Connection
• Africa's Legacy in Mexico from the Smithsonian Institution
• The Black Mexico homepage
• Mexico's forgotten race steps into spotlight from The Guardian
• Black seminoles in Mexico
• Blacks in Mexico - A Brief Overview
• The African Presence in Mexico
• El Negro Mas Chulo: African by Legacy, Mexican by Birth
• Black Indian Mexico